‘They didn’t even ask’: CCTV catches man brazenly stealing three-year-old boy’s beloved flower pot from yard

A three-year-old boy’s day spent proudly choosing and planting flowers with his mum has ended in heartbreak after a brazen thief walked into the family’s front yard and stole his favourite pot just hours later.

Victorian mum Therase Jackson could not believe it when her son Harry noticed a conspicuous gap among the seven flower pots he had planted outside their home the previous afternoon.

But CCTV revealed a man had walked onto the Traralgon property about 7.40pm last Thursday, picked up the pot containing Harry’s favourite yellow flowers and carried it away as a woman waited nearby.

Footage from earlier that evening appears to show the same pair walking past the house – almost two hours before the theft – and eyeing off the newly planted pots.

Ms Jackson believes the man spotted the pot with the yellow flowers during the first pass and returned for it later.

“When I looked at the footage in the first place, I thought it was very weird because as they walked past, it was like he already knew he was off to go get something from them,” she told The Nightly.

“He walked straight past the first one and grabbed that yellow one.

“You can see in that footage when they go past, when it’s still daylight, you can see them having a good look at it.”

She had expected the CCTV to show someone intoxicated or behaving erratically, rather than what appeared to be a couple simply out for an evening stroll.

“It was a really shocking and you kind of don’t think of your plants getting stolen to be honest,” she said.

Earlier that day, Harry and his mum had spent hours choosing and planting the flowers together.

With his older brother at school and Harry on a day off from kindergarten, Ms Jackson suggested they spend the day gardening.

Harry loves flowers and was thrilled when his mum suggested a trip to Bunnings.

“Now that it was getting to Spring and he loves his flowers so much, I thought it would be nice to start making our garden a bit nicer and bright and colourful,” she said.

“He was very excited. He picked his little kids’ trolley.

“Every time he’d walk past a bright, colourful flower, he’d be like, ‘I want that one’, and he’d fill up his little trolley with the flowers.”

Their original plan was to plant them in a strip alongside the driveway, but they discovered crushed brick beneath the soil made digging difficult so they returned to Bunnings to buy pots.

“He grabbed all those pots that he wanted,” she said.

The pair spent the afternoon planting seven pots before heading off to Harry’s swimming lesson.

“He was in his element,” Ms Jackson said.

“It was his little project that he was doing.”

The one containing the yellow flowers was Harry’s favourite.

He proudly showed the finished garden to his brother that afternoon.

“When we picked up his brother after school, he was so excited to show his brother all his flowers,” Ms Jackson said.

“He’d been talking about it in the car, and even his brother was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I love that yellow one!’”

The pots had been outside for only a matter of hours when the pair were first captured on CCTV walking past.

At 7.42pm, the pair returned and the man walked into the yard and took Harry’s favourite pot.

The theft was not discovered until about 8.30am on Friday as the family headed out for school drop-off.

Harry immediately noticed the yellow flowers were missing.

“They really liked that yellow one so that’s probably why he noticed it straight away,” Ms Jackson said.

“At first I thought, ‘No, it’s not missing’, and then I looked and noticed a big gap and said, ‘Oh my God, you’re right’.”

Harry, who turns four in November, still doesn’t understand why someone took his pot.

Ms Jackson said her son loves flowers so much he picks up fallen ones for her when they are out walking, but has always been taught not to pick flowers growing in other people’s gardens.

“He knows we don’t steal, we don’t take anything that’s not ours,” she said.

“I think he was quite hurt that someone had thought that they could come take his flowers when he knows not to do that.

“He was quite upset and he still talks about it. He says ‘They didn’t even ask, Mum’.”

Ms Jackson initially told him they could wait to see whether whoever took it might bring it back, but she is now planning to take him back to Bunnings this weekend.

Ms Jackson shared footage of the theft in a local Facebook group, where the post attracted hundreds of reactions and comments despite the pot and flower being worth only about $25.

“This is just bull. They stalked then came back, shameful,” one woman wrote.

Another said: “Horrible guy! It is not his to take and he has hurt the feelings of a child.”

“Stealing from a child, that’s really low,” another wrote.

One local offered to meet Ms Jackson and Harry at Bunnings and buy replacement plants.

“We need to show him there are more good people than these scumbags!” she wrote.

Other locals said they had stopped leaving plants and garden ornaments outside because they feared they would be stolen.

One woman said she had resorted to using fake flowers after having too many live plants stolen, while another said she would no longer put plants, statues or even a bird bath outside.

“Gone the days have a nice yard with things around,” she wrote.

Several commenters called for the pot to be returned, while others hoped the CCTV would lead to the people being recognised.

“Hope the guy sees this and feels very guilty and returns it,” one wrote.

The brazen theft comes amid heightened concern about property crime across Victoria, from opportunistic stealing to burglaries and car thefts.

The people captured in the footage have not been identified.

Ms Jackson said she hopes they will return the plant.

“You explain to kids that there are bad people in the world and we just have to be careful sometimes,” she said.

“I suppose this was the first time Harry went, ‘Oh, OK, now I see what you mean’.

“I think we will replace it. The garden is missing its yellow colour.”